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AN ADDRESS 



s iHf 



timmtwuiw of tfy pxi Mm £g tfy JnljaBtfattfe 



OF THE 



ORIGINAL TOWN OF LEICESTER, 



fy EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION: 



DELIVERED AT LEICESTER, JULY 4, 1849. 



BY EMORY WASHBURN. 



S3 



BOSTON: 
PRINTED BY C. C. P. MOODY, 

Old Dickinson Office, 52 Washington Street. 

1849. 









t 



AN ADDRESS 



£mmtwmt\M of tfy pxt UUn % tfy SnljaKfonte 



OF THE 



ORIGINAL TOWN OF LEICESTER, 






EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION 



DELIVERED AT LEICESTER, JULY 4, 1849. 




BY EMORY WASHBURN. 



BOSTON: 
PRINTED BY C. C. P. MOODY, 

Old Dickinson Office, 52 Washington Street. 

• 1849, 









In suffering the following Address to be published, the reader is assured, that the only 
motive of the writer is, to furnish to many who desired it, the brief historical sketch 
which it contains of some of the events of the revolution in which the inhabitants of 
the original town of Leicester took part. Their posterity, which has become numerous 
and greatly scattered, it was thought, would naturally take an interest in a recital of 
these, and it was believed that by presenting them in an authentic form, many might 
be gratified by an opportunity thereby to refer to them, who were not present on the 
occasion when the Address was delivered. This explanation, it is hoped, will relieve the 
writer from remark, for having so far departed from the line of prudence as to suffer an 
address to be published, which had been prepared upon so hackneyed a topic as the 
Commemoration of American Independence. 

Note. — The Address was delivered in a grove, a little distance west of the meeting- 
house, where a part of Gen. Burgoyne's army encamped on their march through Massa- 
chusetts, as prisonei's of war, in 1777. 



ADDRESS. 



Every year serves to develope the importance of that 
event which we are met to celebrate. Its history has 
too often been recited to need its being repeated here. 
Looking back npon it from the point at which we now 
view it, the Declaration of American Independence 
stands out as the great political event of modern times. 
It forms the commencement of a new era. In its con- 
summation, the charm of antiquated systems was broken. 
The mere force of brute power lost its terrors, and man, 
at last, stood forth the equal of his fellow man in the 
conscious dignity of a common nature. 

Standing as we do at the distance of seventy-three 
years from that event, our curiosity is naturally awak- 
ened to trace the causes which led to such a declara- 
tion. And as we glance along the history of that period, 
and mark the prominent incidents as they rise before 
the mind, we must still be conscious that there is some- 
thing to be sought for, deeper down among the ele- 
ments, of which the state is composed, which gave the 
first impulse to the American Revolution. We may read 
of the « Stamp Act," and the " Tea Tax," and the 
" Boston Port Bill," and how our fathers rose, as one 
man, to resist those acts of oppressive legislation. But 
the reason why our fathers thus rose — why, when 



almost all Europe were content to be taxed to the 
utmost, the few and feeble and scattered colonies of 
America stood ready to repel the first attempt to levy- 
duties upon them, against their consent — must be 
sought for at an earlier period of our history than that 
chapter which is recited in the Declaration of our Inde- 
pendence. We must go back to the character and 
opinions of the men who planted Plymouth, and Salem, 
and Boston, if we would find the germ *)f that revolu- 
tion. They were the men and the companions of the 
men who, in their zeal as republicans, bearded royalty 
in its own palace halls, and in their devotion as Christ- 
ians, had rather worship God in the wilderness, than 
mingle in what they regarded as the mummeries of 
human ordinance, though played off in the most gor- 
geous cathedral, by the proudest prelate whom church 
and state ever bedizened with the robes of power. 
They came here with the rights of Englishmen, and there 
never was an hour, from the time the Pilgrims landed 
till the Treaty of Peace in '83, when these men or their 
descendants were willing to compromit or yield their 
birthright as Englishmen. When the struggle, there- 
for, came, when in an evil hour for the mother country, 
she undertook to levy moneys of the colonists which 
they had never granted, it found the country alive to 
the indignity. The spirit of Hampden was roused in 
every village in the land to resist at the threshold, the 
encroachment of royal prerogative. 

If we undertake to ascertain how it was that this 
spirit was thus kept alive in these remote colonies, 
while it had, at times, been so nearly extinct in Eng-„ 
land, I greatly mistake, or it will be found that few causes * 
exerted a more direct influence than the institution and 
maintenances of town organizations. It should be re- 



rnembered that these municipal corporations, blending 
as they do the management of social, religious, and 
educational interests, are, principally, of a New England 
origin. They were, at first, identified with the main- 
tenance of churches and religious worship. And when, 
as was soon the case, that other glory of New England — 
the common-school system — was established, it was 
through the agency of towns that it grew up to its 
present beauty and strength. 

By this division of the territory, each municipality 
became a little independent democracy, in which its 
several members, while taking care of its local interests, 
were acting a part in the affairs of the whole Common- 
wealth. In this way, a healthy circulation was kept up 
through every part of the body politic, and, as their 
government was representative in spirit as well as in 
form, the feelings and opinions which prevailed in 
one quarter, found a ready response throughout the 
colony. 

In the history, therefore, of almost any of the early 
towns in this ancient Commonwealth, we should be able 
to trace in no small degree, the progress of the struggle 
between the English government and the Colonies, and 
therein to read of the motives which impelled them to 
resist, together with the sacrifices to which they sub- 
mitted, to sustain that struggle. It would be found, 
that it was by means of these town organizations, that 
the leading spirits in one section held intercourse with 
those in another, and, through them, reached the masses 
who were to be moved. Newspapers were compara- 
tively rare, and intercourse through the post-offices and 
mails was slow, expensive, and, by no means, in general 
use. When, therefore, that noble band of patriots who 
had their home in Boston and its vicinity, were desirous 
1* 



of moving the remote parts of the Province, they trans- 
mitted their letters or their pamphlets to leading indi- 
viduals in the several towns, where they were read and 
discussed in open town meetings before all the inhabi- 
tants. And in this way, much of that harmony of 
action, that generous self-devotion was awakened which 
burst forth, as if spontaneously, in every part of New 
England. 

I have thought these remarks were due to the occa- 
sion when assembled, as we are, to commemorate the 
part which one of these towns took in the struggle for 
our independence. Humble as this part may have been, 
and limited as were her means to urge forward the great 
enterprize of the nation, we shall, if I do not greatly 
mistake, discover in her unpretending history, the same 
springs of action, the same sacrifices, the same hopes 
and the same causes of discouragement which give to 
our national annals, of that period, so much of their ex- 
citing interest. 

It is well therefore that we have come up hither, to 
renew the associations which this spot is calculated to 
awaken. It is well, while a few yet remain to form a 
link, as it were, with revolutionary times, to come 
together and recall the simple story of what our fathers 
and mothers did and suffered that we, their children, 
might be free. It binds us still stronger to the spot 
that gave us birth, to know that its history is not un- 
worthy of awakening a feeling of something like a 
generous pride. If there be those wdio, without the 
sympathy of birth or parentage with these scenes, have 
honored us with their presence, they will hardly expect 
an apology, under the call by which we have been con- 
vened, though, upon a national holiday, we may indulge 
in a detail of local incidents or personal anecdote. 



Before entering into those details, a word of explana- 
tion may be proper, why, in a celebration intended to 
be local, a portion of four several and independent towns 
were expected to unite. The original town of Leicester 
was incorporated in 1714, and embraced Spencer, Leices- 
ter, a part of Paxton, and a part of what is now Auburn. 
In 1753, Spencer was incorporated, and in 1765, Paxton 
became a town. But such was the jealousy of the royal 
governor, of a popular representation, that, instead of 
clothing these corporations with the usual powers con- 
ferred upon towns, they were still united with the 
original territory so far as the election of representa- 
tives was concerned, under the name of " Districts." 

This continued until the 19th July, 1775, and we con- 
sequently find, that in all their measures preliminary 
to the revolution, as well as in all the early movements 
after the revolution had begun, these towns co-operated 
with each other as one body politic. Their representa- 
tive in the General Court, or Provincial Congress, was 
sometimes taken from one and sometimes from another, 
indiscriminately. They came together in town meet- 
ings. Committees, selected from them all, prepared the 
resolutions and instructions which embodied the opin- 
ions, and guided the representatives of the entire dis- 
trict. One spirit animated them alike, and it is difficult 
at this day, to distinguish the part which either took in 
the early movements which prepared the people to de- 
clare and, subsequently, to maintain their independence. 
And these remarks it will be remembered, apply 
equally to the part of Auburn which remained united 
with Leicester till 1778. 

If, then, in what I may offer, I shall, for brevity's 
sake, allude to what was done by all these towns, as 
having been the action of Leicester, I trust I shall not 



8 

be misunderstood as indulging in an invidious eulogy of 
a part where all deserve commendation alike. 

The training and habits of the people of this town had 
prepared them to enter with intelligence and spirit into 
the discussions which preceded the revolution. Several 
of the leading families had removed here directly from 
England, and brought with them a knowledge and a love 
of their rights as Englishmen.* They early established 
schools, and had uniformly maintained religious worship 
under a succession of educated clergymen. They had 
cherished moreover, all the feelings of English loyalty, 
and had shown themselves ready to fight the battles of 
England, whenever and wherever an enemy was to be en- 
countered. Louisburg, and Quebec, and Crown Point, and 
" Old Ti," were as familiar to them as household words, 
and I could point out to you, on the muster rolls of the 
Indian and French wars, the name of many a citizen of 
Spencer and Leicester, who shared in their perils and 
rejoiced in the triumph of the British arms. But with 
all their loyalty, they were always jealous of preroga- 
tive, and were ready to detect every encroachment of 
the crown upon the liberties which they knew the peo- 
ple of England had secured to themselves by their great 
revolution of 1688. 

When, therefore, the proposition for taxing these 
colonies was brought forward by Mr. Grenville in the 
British parliament in 1764, it found the people of these 
towns ready to meet the question, in whatever form it 
should be presented. 

It will be recollected that the proposition for the 
Stamp Act was made in March, 1764, but the bill did 
not pass till March 1765 ; nor was it to take effect till 
the 1st of November following. 

* Among these were the families of Stebbings', in Spencer, and of Denny's and 
Soutbgate's, in Leicester. 



In October, and before the act had taken effect, a 
meeting of the inhabitants of the town was called, to 
see, among other things, "if the town will give instruc- 
tions to their representative in this critical con juncture." 
The instructions which were adopted on that occasion, 
breathe a spirit of devoted loyalty, but, at the same time, 
a stern determination to stand by their rights under the 
English constitution and their own charter. They 
charge their representative " by no means to give his 
assent to any measures whatever, that might imply their 
willingness to submit to (that act) or be anywise aiding 
or assisting in putting the same in execution, but in 
every proper manner, they expect he would appear 
against it." 

In June 1768, Gov. Bernard finding the legislature 
unwilling to rescind the appeal which they had made to 
the other colonies on the subject of the encroachments 
of the crown, dissolved that body. In September follow- 
ing, it was ascertained that troops had been ordered 
from Halifax to Boston, for the purpose of overawing 
the growing spirit of insubordination in the Province. 
The people of Boston, thereupon issued a circular call 
for a convention of the various towns to be holden on 
the 22d of that month, to take these measures into con- 
sideration. The circular bore date the 14th, and Leices- 
ter, ever ready at a moment's call, assembled in town 
meeting on the 19th. A delegate was chosen and 
charged, in a series of able and spirited resolutions. 
But so cautious, withal, were they, that, while they 
recite the grievances which they desire to have removed, 
they limit his authority to the consulting upon such 
measures as might come before that body, not being 
willing to yield their own judgment, in the last resort, 
as to the policy which ought to be adopted. 



10 



In 1768, the merchants of Boston entered into a 
compact not to import goods from England till the 
revenue laws were altered, and this resolution was re- 
newed in the beginning of 1770. In January of the 
latter year, this town, in public meeting, tendered a 
vote of thanks to those merchants. But in the year 
following, they began to take more effective measures 
to meet any emergency. They voted to purchase an 
hundred weight of powder, with bullets and flints in 
proportion. Little as that quantity might now seem, 
it was, in view of the whole powder in the Province, by 
no means an inconsiderable amount. 

The year 1772 passed with comparative quiet, so far 
as this town was concerned. But in January 1773, the 
people were called together to consider a letter from 
the town of Boston, with a pamphlet accompanying it, 
"wherein the rights of the colonists are stated, with the 
infringement thereof." 

This paper, from the pen of James Otis, was sent to 
the several towns in the Province, and was a bold and 
able vindication of the course pursued by the Colonies, 
and a manly appeal to their patriotism. 

The town adopted five spirited resolutions, in which, 
after fully recognizing their allegiance to George III., 
they assert their right to enjoy all the liberties and 
privileges of subjects born within the realm, and their 
readiness to risk their lives and fortunes for the main- 
tenance of these. And, in terms equally explicit, they 
deny that the British Parliament or any other poiver on earth 
had any right to dispose of one farthing of their money without 
their consent in person or by representative. In their instruc- 
tions to their representative, on that occasion, after 
recapitulating the grievances under which the country 
was suffering, they close in these terms: "We think 



11 

ourselves justly entitled to all the calamities which an 
envious despot can heap upon us, should we, tamely 
and pusillaiiimously, suffer the execution of them. It 
would be despising the bounties of our Creator — an in- 
famous prostitution of ourselves, and a total disregard 
of posterity." 

This was indeed strong language to be uttered by a 
body of farmers, scattered over the territory of an inland 
town more than two years before a hostile blow had 
been struck. But it did but echo the tone of feeling 
which pervaded the whole mass of the people. Nor 
was this expression any the less sincere from the con- 
sideration that they were removed from the scene where 
the vengeance of the government was likely first to 
fall. 

It was, indeed, a matter of little moment to them, 
whether a penny more or less per pound was charged 
upon the tea they consumed. But they saw in the 
levy of that penny, a great principle involved, and they 
hesitated not to meet the invasion of their rights at its 
earliest point, though it came from the monarch whom 
they had been taught to revere, and armed with the 
terrors of the British empire. 

On the 27th November, 1773, a number of ships 
freighted with tea arrived in Boston harbor. On the 
16th of December, was the memorable destruction of 
their odious cargoes. On the 27th of December the 
people of this district assembled, and adopted measures 
not only to prevent the use of tea, by personal pledges, 
but to prevent its sale, by publishing the names of any 
who dared to outrage public sentiment by engaging in 
such a traffic. 

The destruction of the tea was followed, in March 
1774, by the Boston Port Bill, which struck a fatal blow 



12 

to the trade and business of Boston. That town ap- 
pealed to the other towns in the Province, on the 12th 
of May, which was replied to by the people of this town 
in a noble letter, all of which I would gladly transcribe if 
time permitted. " The cause" they say, " is interesting to 
all America, and all America must he convinced of this great 
truth, by uniting we shall stand. We hope, and believe that 
Great Britain uill be soon convinced that the Americans can 
live as long without their trade, as they can without ours." 

The year 1774 was full of stirring events. The 
revolution was coming to its crisis. A town meeting 
was held here on the 6th July, and a manifesto 
adopted, wherein they recite a history of their connec- 
tion with the mother country, the position in which 
they then were, in respect to their rights, and the perils 
by which they were surrounded. " At a meeting of the 
freeholders" it commences, "of the inhabitants of the 
town of Leicester and the districts of Spencer and 
Paxton, assembled, not tumultuously, riotously, and 
seditiously, but soberly and seriously — as men, as free- 
men, and as christians, to take into our consideration 
the present distressed state of our affairs, that posterity 
may know what our claims are, and to what struggles 
we are called in defence of them." 

Among the resolutions which they adopted at that 
meeting, there is one which I shall venture to tran- 
scribe, even at the hazard of taxing your indulgence too 
far : " That it is the duty of every person whatever, 
arrived at years of discretion, as much as may be con- 
sistent with their business or occupation for the support 
of their families, to associate together and discourse and in- 
form themselves of their rights and privileges as men, as mem- 
bers of society — and by the English Constitution, that they 
may not be imposed upon by those men who look upon 



13 

them with envy, and are using every art to deprive the 
laborious part of mankind of the fruits of their own 
labor, and wish to live in luxury on that of others." 

Men who could, thus, coolly and deliberately examine 
into the question of their rights, were not likely to 
waste their zeal in mere abstract propositions. And 
we accordingly find them, at the same time, voting to 
have their cannon mounted, and directing the select- 
men to take measures to furnish all the citizens with 
fire-arms. 

It was early in October of that year, that the authority 
of the royal governor, in administering the affairs of the 
Province, was practically and forever abrogated. From 
that time till the 19th of July, 1775, the Commonwealth 
was without any constitutional form of government. 
But the history of this interval is full of interest, as ill us 
trating the character of the people. Civil government 
went on, civil society maintained its integrity, and the 
recommendations of the Provincial Congress became 
imperative as laws, by the power of public sentiment, 
enforced through the primary assemblies of the people 
in the several towns. Leicester and its associated dis- 
tricts were represented in the Provincial Congress, and 
as early as October, 1774, six months before the battle 
of Lexington, they instructed their representative in 
that body, to have measures taken that the militia 
should be properly disciplined and " taught the art of 
ivar with all expedition, as we hioiv not how soon we may be 
called to action." 

In November, they voted to provide two half barrels 
of powder and four hundred weight of balls, as ammuni- 
tion for their cannon, and raised a committee u to supply 
those persons with provisions, who might be called to march 
from home in defence of their rights and privileges." 
2 



14 

Paxton, in August of the same year, had voted to 
purchase a barrel of powder in addition to the stock 
which she had then on hand. 

In January, 1775, 1 believe, each of these towns raised 
a company of "minute men" by a draft from their 
standing militia companies, to be ready to march at the 
earliest alarm. Everything gave dreadful note of prep- 
aration. They not only saw that the storm was gath- 
ering, but they saw it must speedily burst upon the 
land. And, yet, we find no doubt or misgiving in the 
minds of those upon whom it was to fall. On the 5th 
of March, this town held a meeting and adopted a vote, 
" that as it is probable some interesting events may turn up be- 
tween this and May meeting, each minute man be allowed the 
sum of six shillings as a bounty for his service, and if called 
upon to march, to be alloivcd Province pay." 

We have thus traced our fathers through that period 
which preceded the revolution, up to the point when 
they saw there was no retreat, When in the language 
of their vote, they saw that within sixty days " some 
interesting events might turn up," and when their 
minute men " might be called to march." In all this 
we see no sudden outbreak, no manifestation of passion. 
All is calm, deliberate, and decided. They seem to 
have carefully calculated the cost, and in view of all 
the consequences, to have resolved to meet them in 
whatever form they came. 

We may perhaps, be the better able to estimate the 
character of the courage which these men evinced, if 
we stop a moment and contemplate their condition at 
the time. Boston, their capitol, the seat of the little 
trade of the Province, was thronging with British 
troops. British ships of war lay at her wharves ready 
at the first hostile movement, to batter down that 



15 

hot-bed of the revolution. Not a fortification, nor even 
a breastwork protected the country from an inroad of 
these troops at any moment. The entire population of 
the Province was few and scattered. But when we 
look at these towns, the feebleness of their resources 
becomes more apparent, even, than that of the Province. 
In 1765, Leicester had but two hundred and ten men 
above the age of sixteen, including that part of her ter- 
ritory set off to Paxton. Spencer had but one hundred 
and sixty. In 1777, these had increased only to two 
hundred and fifty-seven, in Spencer, two hundred and 
twelve, in Leicester, and one hundred and sixteen, in 
Paxton. Even as late as 1781, the whole number borne 
upon the rolls of the "train bands " of the three towns 
together, exclusive of the "alarm list," was less than 
three hundred men. 

But their supply of warlike stores was less, even, than 
that of men. Leicester had provided herself with about 
two barrels of powder, Paxton had something more than 
one, and Spencer, probably, as much. In May, 1775, 
shortly before the affair at Bunker's Hill, the Provincial 
Congress took measures to ascertain what quantities of 
powder belonged to the several towns in Massachusetts, 
and how much they would be able to contribute for the 
public service. The result of the investigation was, that 
less than sixty-eight barrels was all they could command 
in the whole Province, and of these, Leicester contrib- 
uted one. 

No wonder they had to be sparing of their ammuni- 
tion in their first great struggle with the enemy. No 
wonder they were obliged to retreat, while yet victory 
seemed ready to crown their devoted courage. The 
wonder is that they should have dared, with such re- 
sources, to have resisted at all. The idea of entering 



16 

into a contest of arms with a power like that of England, 
could only have been entertained by men who, relying 
upon the justice of their cause and the favor of a 
gracious Providence, resolved to stand by that cause, 
whatever mi»\ht be the hazard. 

The scenes around us here, often witnessed, during 
the early stages of the revolutionary struggle, exhibi- 
tions of courage and self-devotion, which only needed 
a wider stage to have made their actors worthy of a 
place in the pages of its history. 

Go with me and stand on the little common that lay 
east of the meeting-house, as it then was situated, and 
watch that devoted band of " minute men," in their 
almost daily drill, under the direction of a foreign sol- 
dier whom they had hired to teach them evolutions 
which they were so soon to apply in the camp and in 
the field. Side by side you would see the stripling 
youth and the veteran with gray hairs; side by side, 
the father who had brought home scars from battles in 
the old French wars, and the son who, for the first time, 
had shouldered a musket. There they stand with the 
fire of youth and the coolness of age strangely mingled 
in them both, to fit them for the work upon which they 
know they are so soon to enter. 

Or let us enter that ancient meeting-house, without 
porch or ornament, and lighted by its little windows of 
diamond glass, during some of the numerous meet- 
ings that were held to consider what was to be done 
"in that critical conjuncture." It is filled by eager, 
listening spectators, while their rights as Englishmen 
and' their wrongs as freemen are portrayed with the 
eloquence of truth. Whom do we see in that assembly? 
A body of farmers, a few mechanics, two or three traders, 
as many physicians, and their clergyman, who has come 



17 

to crave for them the blessings of Heaven upon their 
deliberations and their cause. Among them, too, are 
those who had fought under the good old Provincial 
flag of Massachusetts Bay, side by side with the troops 
of England, at Fort Edward, and William Henry, and 
Crown Point. I listen to the debate as one after another 
rises to utter the emotions of deep feeling and stern re- 
solve with which that whole assembly is moved. There 
is no discordant voice there. If there is a tory in either 
of these towns, he is not there. One motive, one sym- 
pathy animates them all, and when, in the impassioned 
language of some of these ". village Hampdens," the fear- 
ful alternative is presented, to yield or fight, there is 
heard a response from every heart which scorns the 
coward's choice — they will fight, fight though England, 
their mother country, with all her array of fleets and 
armies — in all the pride of her power, and in all the 
prestige of her centuries of glory, was to be their foe ! 

Go read the records of what those men did, and see 
if this picture has been overcolored in the least, and 
then show me if you can, in the historjr of the world, ex- 
amples of moral grandeur more worthy of admiration 
than what our fathers, unconsciously, exhibited in their 
humble gatherings on this very spot ! Aye ! and be it 
remembered that every pledge they then gave was 
nobly, sacredly redeemed. Few, feeble, poor as they 
were, there was never a call, be it for men or be it for 
money, which was not promptly answered until that 
long, dreadful struggle was over. 

But I perceive that I am anticipating. The forebod- 
ings indicated by the vote which I have just now recit- 
ed, were realized. An " event did turn up before May 
meeting." It was the opening scene in the great drama 
of the revolution. Blood had been shed at Lexington 
2* 



18 

and Concord. The British troops harassed, discom- 
fited;, and disheartened, had sought shelter in Boston 
from the awakened vengeance of an outraged yeoman- 
ry. The sword had been drawn that was never to be 
sheathed till Massachusetts, with her sister Colonies, had 
taken their stand among the independent nations of the 
earth. 

In this the people of these towns wene by no means 
passive spectators. I have already spoken of the com- 
panies of "minute men," which they had organized. 
That of Leicester had been placed under the command 
of Seth Washburn, who took an early and an active 
part in the affairs of the revolution. The plan of organ- 
izing bodies of men like these, is said to have originated 
with colonel William Henshaw, of this town, who be- 
came the commandant of the regiment of minute men 
to wdiich the Leicester company was ajttached. The 
company in Spencer was a part of colonel Warner's 
regiment, while that of Paxton belonged to the regiment 
of which colonel Doolittle, of Petersham, had the com- 
mand. 

The military stores of the Province had been deposit- 
ed in different places for the purposes of safet}^ and con- 
venience. Among them a quantity of ammunition and 
tents had been ordered by the Provincial Congress to 
be stored in Leicester, a larger quantity in Worcester, 
and a still larger one in Concord. 

It was understood, as early as the 30th March, that 
a descent was contemplated by the British troops upon 
some point in the country for the purpose of seizing or 
destroying these stores. But where the blow was to fall 
no one knew. At length all uncertainty was removed. 
A detachment of nearly a thousand men left their quar- 
ters; in Boston, about ten o'clock on the night of the 



19 

18th April, and between four and five o'clock the 
next morning, the head of their column reached Lex- 
ington. But their march had not been unobserved. 
The alarm spread upon the wings of the wind through 
the Province. Wherever there were bells, they were 
heard ringing out an alarm, and where there were none, 
the people were aroused by discharges of musketry and 
the hurrying haste of messengers shouting, as they pass- 
ed, that the enemy were on their march. So alive were 
the people to the intelligence, and so rapidly was it 
spread, that few and slow as were the ordinary means 
of intercourse at that day, I suppose there was not a 
man within an hundred miles of Cambridge that did 
not know before nightfall that the British troops 
had marched that morning for Concord. It was like 
the summoning of the Scottish clans among the High- 
lands. 



" Fast as the fatal symbol flies, 
In arms the huts and hamlets rise, 
From winding glen, from upland brown, 
They poured each hardy tenant down. 
Nor slacked the messenger his pace, 
He showed his sign, he named the place 
And pressing forward like the wind, 
Left clamor and surprise behind." 



An express rider reached here soon after noon, on the 
19th. He found the captain of the minute company at 
his forge. Dropping a ploughshare, upon which he was 
at work, he seized his musket and rushing into the street 
discharged it. The signal was understood and messen- 
gers were at once on their way to every part of the town, 
to summon the troops to march. Not a man of the com- 
pany hesitated. The mechanic literally left his tools on 
his bench, and the farmer his plough in the furrow, and 
in about three hours time thirty-seven had answered to 



20 

the roll-call. William Watson and Nathaniel Harrod 
were the first and second lieutenants of the company. 
A messenger had been sent to Worcester, that day, for 
an additional supply of arms for the men. But, without 
waiting for his return, at about four o'clock in the after- 
noon, they took up their march for Lexington. On 
their way they halted for a moment before the house of 
the father* of one of the members of the company, and 
he, finding that they were deficient in musket balls, 
hastily took the leaden weights from his clock, and melt^ 
ing them into bullets, distributed them among the men. 

There was another military company in town, of 
which Thomas Newhall, was captain, and Benjamin 
Richardson and Ebenezer Upham, lieutenants. Of this 
company thirty-five, including the officers, without wait- 
ing- for formal orders, volunteered their services and 
soon followed in the rear of the " minute men," thus 
making in all seventy-two who were under arms and 
in fall march before sundown of the 19th April, 1775, 
to meet the enemy wherever he should be found. 

But Leicester was not alone in this. Spencer sent 
fifty-six men under the command of captain Ebenezer 
Mason, with Abijah Livermore, as lieutenant, and Jo- 
seph Livermore, as ensign. A company from Paxton 
promptly answered the call, with thirty-five men, under 
the command of captain Phinehas Moore, whose lieu- 
tenants were Josiah Newton and Seth Snow. The 
history of Spencer,! in describing this event, says that 
the company from that town, " buckled on their knap- 
sacks, shouldered their muskets and were immediately 
on their march. And although the town had not met 
to make provision for the exigency, yet the good wives 

* Nathan Sargent, whose son Samuel belonged to the company, 
t By Hon. James Draper. 



21 

of the soldiers, with the assistance of the selectmen, 
furnishing them with a hasty and imperfect supply of 
provisions, they marched quickly for Cambridge." 

But language is altogether inadequate to do justice 
to the event. I have sometimes tried to call up before 
the mind the scene which was witnessed on this spot on 
the afternoon of the 19th April, 1775. I see the men 
who had been thus hastily summoned, eagerly pressing 
on towards the place of rendezvous on foot or on horse- 
back, (for there were few or no carriages here then,)* 
by the various roads and by-paths that led into the 
straggling village of some eight or ten houses that 
stretched, to the east and west of the meeting-house, 
for some half mile along what was then called " the 
country road." I hear the rapid beat of the drum as it 
calls the men to arms, and listen for an answer to the 
hurried roll-call, as one after another reaches the parade 
ground, and takes his place in the ranks. But it is no 
holiday parade. There is nothing to dazzle the eye in 
the dress or equipments of either officers or men. Not 
one of them wears either ornament or military decora- 
tion. Some are even destitute of guns, and the equip- 
ments of the captain himself are a simple cartouch-box 
and musket that had seen service in the wars of the 
former Georges. 

There are others, too, than soldiers, clustering around 
and mingling with the men who are busily preparing 
to march. Wives and mothers are there, and gray- 
haired fathers, and children looking, with wondering 
eyes, upon this scene of strange commotion. I hear 
the parting charge and the parting blessing, and as the 
last man reaches his post, the word is given, and that 
little band of brave men have begun their march. 

* In 1757, there was neither coach, chaise, nor chair in Leicester. 



22 

I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the 
groups that lingered gazing on the receding forms of 
that company, till its last file had disappeared below 
the brow of yonder hill, and the last sound of the drum- 
beat had died on the ear. 

" It was I assure you," said a daughter of the com- 
mander of that company, within a few weeks, "an 
anxious and an exciting moment. The people retired 
to their homes, but I doubt if there was an eye closed 
in the village that night. Soon after dark the Spencer 
men passed by, and before morning we heard the com- 
pany from Brookfield in rapid march for Lexington." 

Let me close the attempt to picture that scene, by 
this simple recital of the excited emotions of childhood, 
still fresh in the memory of a living witness, after a 
lajDse of more than three score years and ten. 

There was one among* those who witnessed the inci- 
dents of that day, who was an Englishman by birth, 
education, and feeling.^ He was a physician, eminent 
in his profession, and then a resident here. With his 
strong national prejudices, the idea of resisting the Brit- 
ish crown was little short of madness. But when he 
saw, from what he then witnessed, the feeling that per- 
vaded the whole community, and men like these eagerly 
courting the clangers and privations of the common 
soldier, his incredulity gave way — " by heaven," said 
he, "they will fight, and what is more, they wont be beat ! " 
And the prophecy, thus reluctantly wrung from him, 
was in less than two months in the sure progress of ful- 
filment. 

The companies from this town continued their march 
all night. Every house which they passed had lights 
burning in the windows to cheer on the troops that 

*Dr. Honey wood. 



23 

were hastening from every quarter towards Lexington. 
Nor did they halt till they learned that the British had 
retreated into Boston. They then repaired to Cam- 
bridge, where they lay till a new organization of the 
Provincial troops was effected.^ 

Several officers of higher grade than tho sealready 
mentioned, were resident in these towns, and were 
equally prompt in repairing to the scene of action. 
Colonel William Henshaw, the commandant of one of 
the regiments, Samuel Denny, its lieutenant-colonel, 
and John Southgate, its adjutant, all belonged to Lei- 
cester. Joseph Henshaw, another citizen of the town, 
was lieutenant-colonel of a regiment commanded by 
colonel, afterwards general Artemas Ward, of Shrews- 
bury, whose adjutant was James Hart, who, I suppose, 
was a resident in what is now Auburn. And Willard 
Moore, of Paxton, was the major of colonel Doolittle's 
regiment. 

The Provincial Congress had adjourned on the 15th 
of April, but w r ere called together again on the 22d, 
three days after the affair at Lexington. On the 23d, 
they resolved to raise an army of 13,600 men from 
Massachusetts, for the defence of the Province. 

Enlisting orders were at once issued, and on the 24th, 
captain Washburn entered into what was called " the 
eight months' service," and w T as joined, within a few 
days, by thirty-eight from Leicester, nine from Spencer, 
three from Paxton, and five from Oakham. Joseph Liv- 
ermore, of Spencer, and Loring Lincoln, of Leicester, 
were the first and second lieutenants of the company. 
It was soon raised to sixty-four men, and was attached 
to the regiment under the command of colonel Jonathan 
Ward, of Southboro', whose lieutenant-colonel and major 

t They seem, while there, to have been attached to colonel Axtemas Ward's regiment. 



u 

were Edward Barns, of Southboro', and Timothy Bige- 
low, of Worcester. Seven other Leicester men joined 
other companies in the same service, as did eleven of 
captain Moore's men. Captain Joel Green, of Spencer, 
raised a company at the same time, of which forty be- 
longed to that town. It was attached to colonel Larned's 
regiment, of Oxford. The remainder of the troops who 
had marched on the 19th, after remaining in camp two 

to 

or three weeks, returned to their homes. But they did 
not all remain inactive. Jason Livermore, of Paxton, 
raised a part of a company on his return home, with 
which he inarched to Charleston, on Connecticut river, 
and from thence to Ticonderoga, where he joined the 
northern army under the command of general Schuyler. 

William Henshaw was made adjutant-general of the 
Provincial army at Cambridge, and remained such until 
it was put under the command of general Washington 
in the Continental service. 

The men who enlisted from these towns were proba- 
bly similar in character, and dress, and discipline, to the 
rest of the army under general Ward, and the experi- 
ment was soon to be tried whether raw, undisciplined, 
ill-equipped and ill-provided soldiers could stand before 
the flower of the British army, led on by her choicest 
and bravest officers. 

I have already said they wore no uniforms. Colonel 
Prescott himself, the hero of the 17th of June, and the 
principal commander during the battle, is well known 
to have been clad in a calico frock on that occasion. 
Sixteen only of captain Washburn's company received 
supplies, either of clothing or arms, from the public 
stores. The rest supplied themselves at their own 
charge. For arms, some of them had mere fowling- 
pieces, and some carried those heavy cumbrous pieces 



25 

which we used to see under the name of "king's" or 
" queen's arms," from their having been in service dur- 
ing the wars of queen Anne, or the two first Georges, 
Like the rest of the army they were all sadly deficient 
in bayonets, a circumstance of most serious consequence 
to our cause when, at the battle of Bunker Hiil, our 
troops found their ammunition exhausted, and them- 
selves destitute of all means of repelling the enemy, as 
they were mounting the breastwork and the redoubt, 
except the buts of their muskets. 

The dress in which the men had come into the camp, 
must have been such as they had been accustomed to 
wear in their work-shops, and upon their farms at home, 
and, in the then state of manufactures, was undoubtedly 
the product of the domestic loom, and colored with some 
domestic dye by the hand of the frugal housewife. The 
dress of the captain happened to be a camlet coat, and 
as he led on his men in their homespun, parti-colored 
garbs, the picture which they presented might have well 
furnished the original of that which recently appeared 
in one of the popular periodicals of the day* 

" In their ragged regimentals, 
Stood the old Continentals, 

Yielding not, 
When the grenadiers were lunging, 
And like hail fell the plunging 
Cannot shot : 
When the files 
Of the isles, 
From the smoky night-encampment, bore the banner of the rampant 

Unicorn, 
And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drummer, 
Through the morn ! " 

At length the trial came. On the night of the 16th 
of June, 1775, a detachment from the Americanr amy 

* New York Knickerbocker. 



26 



were directed to occupy and throw up entrenchments 
upon Bunker Hill, pursuant to a recommendation of a 
committee, of which colonel William Henshaw, was 
chairman, on the part of the council of war. As soon as 
they were discovered by the enemy, on the morning of 
the 17th, they began to take measures to dislodge the 
Americans by an attack upon their lines. The British 
crossed the river, and, at about three o'clock in the after- 
noon, the battle began. 

To reach Bunker Hill from the American camp in 
Cambridge, it was necessary, as you are all aware, to 
cross a narrow neck of land which wa?, at that time, 
raked by the guns of the British frigate Glasgow, which 
lay in the stream. It was, therefore, scarcely less dan- 
gerous to approach the hill, than to man the works 
which the enemy were endeavoring to carry by assault. 
Both these dangers were shared by the Leicester com- 
pany. I cannot better describe the part they took in 
the transactions of that day, than in the simple narra- 
tive of some of the actors in its never to be forgotten 
scenes. Of that company, however, one only remains,^ 
and he has been spared for more than seventy-four years 
to share the fruits of that glorious struggle for liberty in 
which he bore a part. The regiment was stationed at 
what is called " Fort No. 2," upon the plans which we 
sometimes see of the works on and around Bunker Hill. 
Its colonel was absent on that day, and the command de- 
volved upon lieutenant-colonel Barns. They were 
ordered to march, and left their quarters about noon. 
Before reaching the neck, they were halted and re- 
mained in that position for a considerable time. At 
length they resumed the march, and, rapidly crossing 
the neck, reached the foot of the hill some time after the 

* Nathan Craige. 



27 

action had begun. A messenger here met them stating 
that he had orders that no more troops should go into 
the action. The regiment was accordingly halted, but 
the captain of the Leicester men, stepping from the col- 
umn and addressing his men declared in a loud voice, 
that " orders like them must be tory orders, and he would 
not obey them." He then demanded who of them 
would follow him ? The answer was a movement of 
the entire company, every one of whom quitting the 
ranks of the regiment, eagerly pressed on to the hill 
under the lead of their commander. On their way, they 
met loads of wounded and dying soldiers whom the 
Americans were bringing from the field. As they 
reached the top of the hill, the enemy had made their 
last fatal charge upon the American lines, and were 
about surmounting the breastwork and entering the re- 
doubt. It was just before major Pitcairn, of the British 
army, had been shot down by a black soldier, by the 
name of Peter Salem, whom many of us remember as 
having been a resident in this town for many years. 
The captain here turned to his men, and pointing to 
the scene of carnage before them, and the evident fate 
of the battle, gave to all, who wished, free permission to 
leave the field. Not one, however, availed himself of 
the liberty, but rushing forward into the midst of the 
fight, they took their stand at the rail fence, and 
fought with desperate courage, till nearly surrounded 
by the enemy, when, with the other troops, they with- 
drew from the field. 

But the anecdotes which are told of their retreat, show 
that it was anything but a flight from fear. One of the 
sergeants^ received a shot in the thigh and another 
in the foot, which disabled him from walking. The 

* John Brown. 



28 

captain, seeing this, seized him in his arms, and carried 
him, together with both their muskets, till his strength 
failed. The wounded man insisted upon being left, and 
the captain hastening after his men, overtook a brother 
and a neighbor of the sergeant,^ and sent them back to 
bring him off the field, which they did in the face of the 
enemy's fire. Two others of the company were wound- 
ed,! but not severely, and none were killed. Several re- 
ceived balls through their clothes. Among them, the 
captain had a ball shot into his cartouch-box, one through 
his wig, and four through his coat. One of the com- 
pany$ had cultivated a long appendage to his head in 
the form of a quieu, with as much affection as a modern 
exquisite nurses the hairy excmscence that sprouts from 
his chin or upper lip. It had been carefully braided 
and fastened into two strands, but upon coming out of 
the action he was sadly disturbed to find that one of 
these had been unceremoniously shorn close to his head, 
by an envious bullet from one of king George's men. 
Another of the men § found the head of his canteen had 
been perforated by a ball which had taken the place of 
the contents it had discharged upon the ground, and 
was long preserved as a trophy of the fight. 

One other of the men || who had provided himself, 
among other creature comforts, with a small quantity 
of rum, which he carried in a canteen at his side, per- 
ceived, while on his retreat, that a ball from the enemy 
had cut the string by which it hung. Looking for the 
canteen, he discovered it in rapid progress towards the 
enemy who were approaching by a flank movement. 
With a desperate determination that -' k 'he would be 
darned if the regulars should have his rum," he coolly 

* Perley Brown and Jonathan Sargent, f Wm. Crossrnan and Kerley Ward. % Daniel 
Hubbard. § Samuel Sargent. || Isaac Livennora. 



29 

turned and followed his canteen, till he overtook it, and 
then brought it off amidst a shower of bullets that 
whistled around him. 

I shall be pardoned, I trust, for indulging in trifling- 
anecdotes like these, for they serve to show the charac- 
ter of the courage and self-possession of those who, on 
that day, mingled for the first time in scenes of conflict, 
carnage, and death. But the dangers and hardships of 
a soldier's life were not new or altogether strange to 
some of that company. I have already alluded to the 
part which so many of the men of that day had taken 
in the French and Indian wars in which the Province 
had been involved. 

The captain had been in the service of the crown 
more than twenty-five years prior to that time, and 
others of the company had had a practical lesson what 
war was in the memorable campaign of 1757, at Crown 
Point and Fort Wra. Henry .^ 

There was one, too, from this vicinity, whose untime- 
ly fate on that day ought not to be forgotten on this occa- 
sion. Major Willard Moore, belonged to Paxton, but lived 
just beyond the original line of the town of Leicester. Far 
less is known of his personal history than his gallant 
conduct and death would seem to demand. He was, I 
suppose, a farmer, as were most of the men who fought 
in the American ranks at Bunker Hill. I find he had 
been an ensign of a company in 1767. When the 
minute men were organised, he was made a major of 
one of the regiments, under the command of colonel 
Doolittle, and at the time of the Lexington alarm has- 
tened to Cambridge. Here a new regiment was raised, 
under the command of the same colonel, and major 

* Among these were Parley Brown and James Greaton.JEbenezer Saunderson was in 
the army in 17G1. 

3* 



so 

Moore was commissioned, by the Provincial Congress, 
to the same place he had held in his former regiment. 
He came early, with his men, into the battle of the 
17th June, and took a prominent post of danger. In 
consequence of the absence of his colonel, the command 
of the regiment had that day devolved upon him. 

In the second charge of the enemy upon our lines, 
he was shot through the thigh and fell. His men were 
carrying him from the field when he received another 
ball through the body. The wound was a mortal one, 
though not immediately so. It was an exceedingly hot 
day, and he suffered dreadfully from thirst. No water 
could be had, short of the Neck, and two of his men, 
leaving him upon the field, went in pursuit of it to re- 
lieve his sufferings. On their return the American 
troops were just leaving the redoubt in their retreat. 
His men offered to carry him from the field, but, with 
the self-sacrifice of true heroism, he bade them save 
themselves, and leave him to his fate. He fell in that 
first great struggle of the revolution, in the cause of his 
country and mankind. And so long as the glorious 
day, that declared that country independent, shall be 
remembered, his name should live in the record of her 
history. 

While their brothers were in the field, the citizens of 
these towns were, by no means, inactive or indifferent 
spectators of the passing events. On the 13th July, 
17^5, they met to elect a representative to the general 
assembly, which was about to convene, and in instruc- 
tions of considerable length, expressed their views of 
the then state of public affairs. " At this most critical 
and important period," say they, " on which are sus- 
pended the happiness or ruin of British America, you 
are called, by the suffrages of your townsmen, to repre- 



31 

sent them in the ensuing general assembly of this 
Province. To this important noio posterity will look 
back either with joy and admiration, secure in the pos- 
session of their inestimable liberties, or with the keen- 
est sensations of grief while they drag the galling chain 
of servitude. Since the settlement of America no pe- 
riod has been so replete with great and interesting 
events as the present, and it will require the utmost 
exertions of the human mind to counteract the designs 
of the enemy." 

But time compels me to forego the pleasure of trans- 
cribing the just and noble sentiments which are em- 
bodied in those instructions. It was the last occasion 
when these towns acted together in general meeting. 
From that period the history of their efforts in the 
common cause was distinct, and I greatly regret that 
imperfect as my knowledge of the sacrifices made by 
either of them is, so far as it extends, it is principally 
confined to one, only, of them. But judging from the 
spirit with which, to that date, they had co-operated, I 
have no reason to suppose that there was any stronger 
patriotism in any one than was to be found in them all. 
If there was any apparent prominence in one over the 
others it was probably the result of accident. It so 
happened that several individuals in Leicester were not 
only spirited and influential men themselves, but were 
connected with Boston through family relations, or by 
having, themselves, resided there, and consequently 
were early apprised of the measures which were con- 
templated, from time to time, at the fountain head of 
the political movements of the day. This was the case 
with Thomas Denny, a prominent man in the Province, 
who died just as the revolution began. So it was the 
case with the two colonels Henshaw, Joseph and Wil- 



32 

liam, as well as with the late Hon. Joseph Allen, to 
whose pens, I have reason to believe, the town owe 
many of the able and patriotic resolutions and instruc- 
tions to their representatives, which are preserved in 
her records.^ 

I should have been glad to give, in detail, the number 
of men and the amount of moneys raised by each of 
these towns, to carry on the war. But, unfortunately, 
I can only approximate the truth in regard to eitber of 
them. Even what does appear of record, now seems 
utterly incredible, if it were not fully sustained by the 
uniform testimony of witnesses who have, till within a 
few vears, been alive and amongst us. I do not believe 
there is another nation in the world who ever met, with 
such limited means, such heavy, systematic, and repeated 
drafts of men and mone}^ for such a length of time as 
did Massachusetts. She was, as I have already said, 
comparatively poor, and thinly peopled. Yet, for eight 
long years, she continued to pour out the blood and 
treasure of her sons without stint and without one se- 
rious thought of shrinking. 



* Thomas Denny was the son of Daniel, who came from England, and was an early 
settler in Leicester, and whose sister was wife of the Eev. Dr. Prince, of Boston. He 
was born in 1724, and died October 23, 1774, while a member of the Provincial Con- 
gress. His brother Samuel was the lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of minute men as 
already stated. He was also called into the service at Claverack, in 1777, as colonel of 
a regiment of the militia. He married a sister of colonel Henshaw. 

The Henshaws were the sons of Daniel Henshaw, who removed to Leicester, in 1748, 
from Boston, where the sons above named, as well as his son David, were born. They 
all sustained important civil relations and were among the most prominent men in the 
town. William entered the army, as a lieutenant, at as early an age as 21, in what was 
known as one of the " French wars," under Lord Amherst. He was actively en- 
gaged as a lieutenant-colonel, and a part of the time as commandant of a regiment dur- 
ing the year 1776-7, on Long Island, where he took an important part in the battle of 
the 27th August! and afterwards with general Washington, in his passage of the Dela- 
ware, and at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He died in 1820. 

Mr. Allen removed from Boston to Leicester, in November, 1771, where he was en- 
gaged in business, as a merchant, until 1776, whenhe was appointed clerkjof the courts, 
and removed to Worcester. 



33 

The number of what were known as the Continental 
troops, furnished by Massachusetts, amounted, upon an 
average, to more than eight thousand every year during 
the war. Or, if we regard them as having each done 
service for a single year, their number would be at least 
sixty-eight thousand. This was exclusive of fifteen thou- 
sand of the militia which were called into the service at 
different times during the war ; and this out of a popu- 
lation where the whole number of males, above sixteen 
years of age, scarcely exceeded seventy-five thousand. 

The proportion of the expenses of the war, which was 
borne by Massachusetts, was greater, I apprehend, even 
than that of the number of her men. 

Commissioners were appointed, after the peace, to set- 
tle the amounts of the several states for expenses in- 
curred in the war, and the amount allowed by them to 
Massachusetts was but a fraction from $18,000,000. But 
this sum must have fallen very much below the total 
amount expended by her, if the sums contributed by 
towns and individuals, in sustaining the struggle, of 
which no account was ever rendered, were embraced in 
the computation. And this amount, it ought to be re- 
membered, was raised in about eight years by a state 
whose ratable polls never, during the time, exceeded 
seventy-seven thousand. 

What proportion of these was furnished by these towns, 
can never be accurately known. From returns preserv- 
ed among the records of Leicester, I find that there 
were twenty-eight drafts for men made upon this town, 
between May, 1775, and July, 1781, and that to answer 
these, two hundred and fifty-four men were at different 
times furnished for the service during that period. This 
number, however, does not include the seventy-two who 
marched at the time of the Lexington alarm. Nor does 



34 

it include those who enlisted into the " Continental ser- 
vice" for the term of three years, or during the war, nor 
the men who were supplied by the " classes" into which 
the town was divided in 1781, for the purpose of procur- 
ing complements of troops as they were required. How 
many there were of these I have not been able to ascer- 
tain. I find, however, the names of thirty belonging to 
the town, who, I have reason to believe, enlisted into 
the Continental army, for at least three years, during 
thirteen months, in 1777 and '78.* Many other names 
of her citizens are found upon the rolls of the army, and 
we may easily imagine that their number was not small 
when we remember how many were to be met with here, 
a few years since, who could tell what they did, and saw, 
and suffered at White Plains, and Trenton, and Mon- 
mouth, and Valley Forge. 

If we assume these premises as the basis of calculation, 
it would, I think, be found that, if we consider each term 
of service as having been performed by a distinct set of 
men, there w T ere more soldiers drawn from this town dur- 
ing the period of the war, than there were males resid- 
ing here above the age of sixteen years, and more than 
double the whole number of names borne upon the rolls 
of its train bands. So large were these drafts, and so of- 
ten repeated, that committees were raised by the town to 
go into other towns to hire men to supply them. And 
it became necessary, repeatedly, to elect new town 
officers because so many of those who had been elected 
were absent in the army. Indeed, so difficult did it at 
last become to procure men to fill the quotas which were 
required of the town, that bounties as high as ^£30 each, 



* Among them Vv'illiara Crossman became a lieutenant, and Joseph Washburn, en- 
sign, of a company in colonel Bigelow's regiment, in January, 177". Grossman soon 
left the service, and Washburn was made lieutenant of the company. 



35 

were paid in silver to those who were willing to enlist. 
It was to obviate this difficulty and relieve the town of 
the heavy charge, that the principle of conscription or 
classing the inhabitants was adopted, whereby what had 
been the duty of the whole, devolved upon a certain 
number of its inhabitants, who were obliged to procure 
the requisite number of soldiers as they were needed 
from time to time. How many were furnished by classes 
in this town or at what expense, I have not, as I have 
already said, been able to determine. 

Nor have I any reason to suppose that Spencer or 
Paxton were any less liberal than Leicester in the aid 
which they furnished to the cause of their country. I 
find bounties paid by Spencer to thirty men, between 
January, 1777, and February, 1778, who had joined the 
Continental army, and to seven more soon after, who had 
enlisted from that town into the same service. Paxton 
furnished seventeen men who joined the Continental 
troops during the year '77. I cannot fix the proportion, 
if any, which prevailed in the numbers which were at 
different times levied from these towns. But I find 
that in 1780, when a draft was made for "six months' 
men," Leicester furnished seventeen, Spencer eighteen, 
Paxton ten, and Auburn (then Ward) four, of the requi- 
site number. Where, indeed, shall we look for a more 
signal manifestation of devoted self-sacrificing patriotism 
than is furnished by this simple detail of the numbers 
who went forth here, from their farms and firesides, to 
battle for their homes and their rights as freemen ! 

But it was not in the field or the camp alone, that 
the people of these towns were called upon for sacrifices 
and privations. Justice, I apprehend, never has been, 
and never will be done to those who remained at home, 
and contributed to sustain the burden of expense which 
the war created. 



36 

I say nothing of the sleepless nights and anxious days 
of the wives and mothers whose husbands and sons had 
left their homes desolate and their fields untilled ; I say 
nothing of the ceaseless toil of the women of the revolu- 
tion to supply, from their own looms and handiwork, 
clothing for the army and comforts for the sick and 
wounded. I say nothing of the widows which that war 
made, nor of the mourning which was heard in almost 
every village over some friend, or brother, or son, who 
had fallen in battle, or been the victim of the pestilence 
which the camp, with its vices, and fevers, and destitu- 
tions, had generated. These are but the incidents of 
war, even in its mildest form, and it is as impossible to 
measure as it is vain to attempt to portray such scenes 
of individual suffering. 

There is enough in the sacrifices which our father's 
made which can be measured by the ordinary standard 
of dollars and cents, to give us some idea of what that 
struggle cost them in treasure as well as suffering. 

It is difficult, as all must be aware, to fix the precise 
extent of the taxation to which the people were sub- 
jected, from what we read in the records of the time, in 
consequence of the depreciation of paper money which 
formed the ordinay currency of the day. In ascertain- 
ing what the actual value of the sums of money was, 
which were raised by this town during the war, I have 
endeavored to apply what I supposed was as correct a 
scale as was within my reach.* 

Applying this standard, I find that the town of Leices- 
ter or its inhabitants, during the six first years of the 
war, | aid out in the form of bounties to soldiers, upon 
their enlistment, more than eleven thousand dollars. And 

* I hare principally relied upon one, -which is found in the history of Worcester, the 
accuracy of which all will concede, who recai the character of the author. 



37 

of this sum nearly three thousand were paid during the 
single year 1777. 

Besides these sums, the town raised large amounts, 
from time to time, to aid in carrying on the war, the 
aggregate of which could have been scarcely if any less 
than seven thousand dollars — making, I doubt not 
more than $18,000 in money over and above their 
share of the taxes, which were levied by the state, to 
sustain the war or to pay the war debt. And this was 
contributed, by this single town, in the space of less than 
eight years. It ought to be remembered, moreover, that 
the town that did this was by no means a wealthy one. 
Out of two hundred and fifteen towns in Massachusetts 
proper, in the year 1772, one hundred and seven had a 
larger population and a higher valuation of property 
than Leicester, and among the towns in our own county, 
she ranked, at that time, no higher than the twentieth 
in either of these respects. 

The amount furnished by Spencer, in bounties and 
supplies, to her Continental soldiers alone, was nearly 
three thousand dollars. The charge incurred by Pax- 
ton, for the same purpose, was about fourteen hundred 
dollars. But these sums do not cover the advances of 
money and other things which they made in behalf of 
the state troops and the expenses of the war, the amount 
of which I have no means of determining. 

Nor were these, by any means, the whole burden 
which these towns were called upon to sustain. I find 
that in 1775, the Provincial Congress imposed upon the 
town of Leicester, the charge of supporting thirty-six 
of the inhabitants of Boston, who had fallen into distress 
by the ruin of their trade. I find its inhabitants voting 
to abate the taxes of those who were serving in the 

army. 

4 






38 



I find them voting supplies for the families of the men 
who had enlisted here into the three years' Continental 
service. I find them providing clothing for their soldiers 
while absent from home. I find repeated drafts made by 
the board of war upon the keeper of military stores in this 
town,* during the years 1777 and 1778, for clothing for 
the army. For men obliged, as they were, to labor in- 
cessantly, the sacrifice they were called upon to make, 
in the mere matter of town meetings, wa*s by no means 
slight. I find they were called together at least eighteen 
times during the single year 1774. Nor was this all. 
In May, 1780, they allowed one hundred and ten bushels 
of corn to every one of the soldiers who would relin- 
quish his wages. In January, 1781, they raised more 
than four hundred dollars, for the purchase of beef for 
the army, and in July, of the same year, they furnished, 
as their proportionate supply for a single month, one 
thousand pounds of beef for the same use. 

I might swell the number of these votes and appro- 
priations which are scattered through the pages of their 
records. But, were I to do so, I should feel that I was 
trespassing too severely upon your indulgence. Make 
whatever abatement we may, from any of these sums, on 
account of any supposed error in the scale of deprecia- 
tion which we are to apply, it seems all but incredible 
how such burdens could have been borne by a town, 
the whole of whose ordinary expenses before the war, 
for the support of their highways, their poor, their schools, 
and contingent charges, seem not to have exceeded two 
hundred pounds by the year. 

And, yet, while staggering under the enormous bur- 
dens of the war, when it was proposed in town meeting 
to suspend their schools, the proposition was at once 

* Seth Washburn. 



39 



rejected. And to their glory be it said, neither their 
schools nor their sanctuary were closed from any refusal 
on the part of the people, to meet the necessary ex- 
penses, during the whole of that dark period. 

Nor ought it to be overlooked, that this crushing 
weight fell, principally, upon the men who remained at 
home. And when we recollect besides, that this was 
almost entirely an agricultural community, we may be 
ready to believe the traditionary anecdotes which we 
have heard, of the desperate straits to which many were 
driven, to meet the demands which were thus made 
upon their industry — small farmers obliged to part with 
almost the last animal in their stalls — to divide the little 
crops of grain they had raised, with the tax-gatherer, 
and often to stint themselves and families in the very 
necessaries of life, that they might feed and clothe the 
men who were fighting their battles, or sustain the 
families which they had left to be cared for by their 
fellow townsmen. 

Full of interest, as incidents like these may be re- 
garded, as matters of local history, and happy as I should 
have been to present a complete narrative of the events 
of the war in which the officers and men who resided in 
these towns took a part, I am reminded by the length o/ 
time I have already consumed, that I can pursue the 
subject no farther. 

And yet enough has been exhibited to show that men 
and women who could cheerfully make all these sacri- 
fices, rather than submit to the tax of a penny, uncon- 
stitutionally laid, would not be found shrinking, when 
the proposition came for declaring these Colonies inde- 
pendent. It was a bold act in the Congress of 1776, to 
publish such a declaration to the world, but they did 
but utter the determined will of the whole people, when 



40 

they made it. The nation was ready for it before 
Jefferson permed that immortal instrument. On the 
22d of May, 1776, a town meeting was called in this 
town, which was shortly after convened, in Tibich it was 
unanimously voted, "that in case the honorable Continental 
Congress should declare the Colonics independent of Great 
Britain, they tvould support said Congress in effectuating such 
a measure, at the risk of their lives and fortunes." 

Spencer adopted a similar resolution on the 24th 
June, of the same year. 

How far they redeemed this solemn pledge, when in 
July that declaration came, let the facts, to which I have 
already alluded, bear witness. God in his mercy crowned 
their efforts with success, and we, their sons, are now 
celebrating amidst these scenes of beauty, and thrift, and 
comfort, the Independence which they vowed to sus- 
tain, amidst gloom, and poverty, and weakness. 

But there were other respects in which they showed 
themselves fit to be free men than their courage and self- 
sacrifice in sustaining the war. They presented a moral 
spectacle as striking as the extent of their physical en- 
durance. 

I have already alluded to the fact, that for more than 
nine months, the state was without any constitutional 
government to make or enforce laws. The body known 
as the " Provincial Congress," was but a convention of 
influential citizens, whose acts had no binding force be- 
yond the favor with which they were received by an 
intelligent public. And yet, I have sought, in vain, for 
any evidence that there ever was a time in either of 
these towns, during that interval, when the voice of jus- 
tice was silent, or order and domestic quiet did not 
prevail under the sanction of law. 

These towns were, in effect, independent little repub- 



41 

lies, where committees of vigilance, aided by a vigorous 
tone of moral sentiment in the community, restrained 
the passions of the bad and enforced the dictates of the 
public will. Anecdotes illustrative of this state of self- 
government might easily be gathered from the history 
of either of these towns. But time precludes me from 
attempting it now. 

There is one other subject connected with the moral 
feeling of the people of that day, which I ought not 
wholly to omit, even at the hazard of wearying you 
still farther by these necessarily protracted remarks, 
and that is slavery. 

It is probably known to us all that slavery once ex- 
isted by law in this Commonwealth. Some of us are 
old enough to remember a few who were declared free 
by the constitution of 1780, but still continued to reside 
in the families of their former masters. But slavery 
never was in popular favor in Massachusetts. It had 
been imposed upon her by her connection with Eng- 
land, and though she struggled hard to rid herself of it, 
the crown interposed to prevent it. A majority of the 
legislature, in 1773, passed an act for the suppression of 
the slave trade, but governor Hutchinson, under direct 
orders from the crown, vetoed the bill. And it will be 
remembered that the first declaration which the people 
of Massachusetts made in their bill of rights, was that 
" all men are born/m?." The number of slaves in either 
of these towns must always have been very small. I 
do not find the returns of any at any time in Paxton. 
In 1755, Leicester had six, and Spencer three, and in 
'65, there were only seven black persons in Leicester, 
and but five in Spencer. With the exception of some 
half dozen slaves brought here by the Jews, upon their 
removal from Newport, I do not believe there were ten 
4* 



42 

in both towns together, at any time within ten years of 
the revolution. Nor was the relation which they held to 
the rest of the community such as to shock the sensi- 
bility of any one. They ate at the same table, worked 
in the same field, and wore the same homespun dress 
as their masters, and were rather the pets and favorites, 
especially of the younger members of the family, than 
objects, as in these modern days, for sprigs of chivalry 
to try their lessons upon, while fitting themselves to 
become rulers of free men. 

Yet, even with all its mildness the institution of slave- 
ry was justly odious to our ancestors. Whatever may 
be said on the subject at this day, the wUgs of that day 
were, I believe, to a man, for a "free soil" They 
anxiously sought to be rid of the disgrace which the ex- 
istence of slavery entailed upon men professing to be 
free, and struo-^lino- to maintain their freedom. 

I recur, with pride, to the record they have left in 
this town of their sentiments upon this subject. In 
their instructions to their representative, in May, 1773, 
they say, "as ice hare the highest regard for, {so even as to re- 
vere the name of) Liberty, ive cannot behold but with the greatest 
abhorrence, any of our fellow creatures in a state of slavery. 
Therefore zve strictly enjoin you to use your idmost influence 
that a stop may be put to the slave trade by the inhabitants of 
this Province?' 

Such were the sentiments then, and such, I thank 
God, are the sentiments now of the people of our glori- 
ous old Commonwealth, and such must they ever be, 
till she ceases to hold the rank she now does amonar 

o 

the republics of the earth, for intelligence, enterprise, 
and moral power. 

I deeply regret that I have been compelled, thus 
heavily, to tax your indulgence, while I am yet con- 



43 

scious of the injustice I have done to the subject and 
the occasion. Incidents which, at the time, were deem- 
ed unimportant, have grown to consequence by their 
connexion with events which, in their progress, have 
excited the admiration of the w r orld. We are able to 
take a stand-point from which to view the events of the 
American Revolution in a light which the actors in its 
scenes, with all their foresight, could never have antici- 
pated. We are witnessing the fruits of that movement 
which hurried our fathers in their march for Lexington, 
and nerved them to meet, unquailing, the serried ranks 
of a British army at Bunker Hill, in the tottering 
thrones and crumbling dynasties of the old world, and 
in the constantly widening spread of American princi- 
ples in the new. We have reached that point in 
human progress, when fact outruns fancy, and the wild- 
est dream of the most imaginative visionary of '76, has 
long since been left behind by the actual history of 
the race. 

And, yet, so brief has been the period within which 
these changes have been wrought, that the span of a 
human life has measured them all. Six, who at one 
time or another, took part as soldiers, in the dangers, 
and sufferings, and triumphs of the revolution, from the 
ancient town of Leicester, are yet spared to share its 
fruits with us.* Some of them, we welcome to this 
jubilee — we greet them as the representatives of a 
noble race, now, alas ! almost extinct amongst us. 

Venerable man ! the last of that little band who 
mustered on this spot, and took up their midnight 
march to find and to meet the invader — we welcome 



* Austin Flint and Asahel Matthews, of Leicester, Nathan Craige, Joel Howe, Phin- 
ehas Jones, and Isaac Lamb, of Spencer. Mr. Craige, Matthews, Jones, and Hows 
were present. Mr. Craige was 95 years old. 



44 

your presence — we recognise in you one of the con- 
necting links between the royal Province of Massachu- 
setts Bay, and the honored equal of thirty independent 
republics. Where the fathers stood, side by side, with 
you, on the 19th April, 1775, the sons and the grand- 
sons have come to do honor to their memories, and to 
thank God that there is yet one left to whom we can 
point our children, and say, it was such men who fought 
the battles of the revolution, and achieved the inde- 
pendence which we enjoy. 

It is impossible to stand upon this spot, surrounded 
by such associations, without feeling one's spirit stirred 
within him. Fancy, unbidden, brings back its scenes of 
former days, and peoples it with the men who gathered, 
in council here, with anxious, earnest hearts, in the days 
that literally " tried men's souls." But it needs not the 
aid of fancy to read our duty in the light of their ex- 
ample. There comes a voice from the very graves of 
such men that speaks not to the dreaming ear, but the 
warm affections of every generous heart. It bids us 
stand by the ark of liberty which they bore through 
the toilsome march of the revolution, in safety and tri- 
umph. It bids us preserve, for our posterity, the price- 
less boon which they bequeathed to us. And when, in 
after days, our children shall gather here to celebrate 
this clay, as we do now, let them have no cause to blush 
that we, their fathers, had been unfaithful to our father's 
trust. 



APPENDIX. 



A muster roll of captain Seth "Washburn's company, in colonel 
Ward's regiment, who marched on the alarm, April 19, 1775. Those 
marked * joined the company from captain Newhall's, at Cambridge. 

Seth Washburn, captain. 
William Watson, first lieutenant. 
Nathaniel Harrod, second lieutenant. 
Samuel Watson and Henry King, sergeants. 
Ebenezer Kent and Jonathan Newhall, corporals. 



Benjamin Convers, 
Abner Dunbar, 
Thomas Parker, 
Ambrose Searl, 
Jesse Green, 
Jonas Southgate, 
Samuel Richardson, 
Jesse Smith, 
Peleg Hersey, 
John Brown, 
William Crossman, 
Hezekiah Saunderson, 
Daniel Hubbard, 
Abijah Stowers, 
Adam Gilmore, 
* David Newhall, 
Daniel Denny, 
Ebenezer Saunderson, 
Jonathan Jackson, 



* Elijah Comins, 
Elias Green, *"" 

* Israel Saunderson, 

* John Weaver, 

* Isaac Livermore, jr., 
Jonathan Sargent, 
Job Stetson, 
James Greaton, 
Morris Huggins, 
Nathan Craige, 
Phinehas Green, 
Perley Brown, 

* Stephen Taylor, 
Samuel Sargent, 
William Brown, 

* Daniel Snrgent, 
Jason Livermore, 
James Tucker. 



46 



Roll of captain Thomas Newhall's company of militia, who marched 
from Leicester to Cambridge, on the alarm, the 19th of April, 1775. 

Thomas Newhall, captain. 

Benjamin Richardson, lieutenant. 

Ebenezer Upham, second lieutenant. 

Loring Lincoln, Isaac Choate, and James Whittemore, sergeants. 

Phinehas Newhall and Phinehas Sargent, corporals. 

Peter Silvester, jr., Daniel Carpenter, 

Jonathan Johnson, Reuben Earle, 

Nathaniel Richardson, "Wait Upham, 

Moses Hovey, Richard Bond, 

Micah Livermore, Reuben Swan, 

Elijah Howe, Solon Green, 

Jonathan Sargent, jr., Isaac Livermore, jr., 

Elisha Ward, Stephen Taylor, 

Benjamin Levinston, Daniel Sargent, 

Thomas Snow, Elijah Cu minings, 

Thomas Green, Israel Saunderson, 

Reuben Lamb, John Weaver, 

Phinehas Barton, David Newhall. 
Caleb Nichols, 



A roll of captain Ebenezer Mason's company, who marched as min- 
ute men for the defence of the Colonies on the 19th April, 1775, from 
Spencer, belonging to colonel Jonathan Warner's regiment. 

Ebenezer Mason, captain. 

Abijah Livermore, lieutenant. 

Joseph Livermore, ensign. 

Benjamin Bemis, jr., Wm. Green, Wm. White, and Samuel HalL, 

sergeants. 
Oliver Watson, Jonas Muzzy, Asa Sprague, and Jeduthan Green, 

corporals. 
James Draper, drummer, Luther Prouty, fifer. 

John Draper, John Bemis, 

Jesse Bemis, John Ball, 

Isaac Prouty, David Livermore, 

Nathaniel Wilson, James Watson, 

Benjamin Sumner, Robert Watson, 

John Woodward, jr., Thomas Whittemore, 

Jonas Lamb, Nathaniel Loring, 

Thomas Sprague, Isaac Livermore, 



47 



Michael Hatch, 
Jonathan Rich, 
John Waite, 
John Knapp, 
Joseph Grout, 
Benjamin Gleason, 
Joseph Wheat, 
Levi Thayer, 
Joshua Draper, jr., 
Elisha Whitney, 
Reuben Lamb, 
John Hatch, 
Amos Whittemore, 
Wright Woodward, 



Samuel Bemis, 
Rand Wiiite, 
David Rice, 
Richard Hutton, 
Samuel Gariield, jr., 
Nathaniel Cunningham, 
John Lamb, jr., 
Asa Whittemore, 
John Worcester, 
Elijah Southgate, 
Knight Sprague, 
David Lamb, 
Timothy Capeu, 



Roll of captain Phinehas Moore's company of minute men of Paxton, 
commanded by colonel Ephraim Doolittle, who marched on the alarm, 
the 19th April, 1775, from Paxton to Cambridge. 



Phinehas Moore, captain. 
Josiah Newton, lieutenant. 
Seth Snow, second lieutenant. 
Adam Maynard and Ephraim 
William Heard, fifer. 

David Knapp, 

Jeremiah Whitaker, 

James Green, 

Job Johnson, 

James Sproat, 

Joshua (or John) Bigelow, 

Thomas Greenwood, 

Nathan Swan, 

Oliver Earle, 

James Logan, 

John Davis, 

Abijah Brown, 

Jonathan Waite, 

Thomas Lamb, 



Bellows, sergeants. 

Jonathan Hubbard, 
Thomas Hunt, 
Clark Earle, 
Joseph Knight, 
James Pike, 
Samuel Gould, 
Aaron Martin, 
Samuel Steward, jr., 
David Snow, jr., 
Silas Bellows, 
Josiah Baldwin, 
Jonathan Clemons, jr., 
Jason Livermore, 
William Thompson. 



48 



A muster roll of a company under command of Seth Washburn, in 
colonel Jonathan Ward's regiment, in the eight months' service, in 1775. 

Seth Washburn, captain. 

Joseph Livermore, Spencer, lieutenant. 

Loring Lincoln, Leicester, second lieutenant. 

Peleg Hersey, John Brown, Anthony Sprague, and Wm. Cross- 
man, Leicester, sergeants. 

Hezekiah Saunderson and Daniel Hubbard, Leicester, Elijah 
Southgate, Spencer, and Kerley Ward, Qakham, corporals. 

Elijah Torrey, Leicester, fifer. 



Andrew Morgan, Spencer. 

Alexander McFarland, Oakham. 

Joseph Washburn, Leicester. 

Jonas Lamb, Spencer. 

Jesse Jones, Weston. 

John Thompson, Paxton. 

Matthew Jackson, Rutland, after- 
wards Leicester. 

Peter Rice, Spencer. 

Silas Livermore, Weston. 

Thomas Sprague, Spencer. 

Samuel Underwood, Weston. 

Silas Bellows, Paxton. 

George Dunn, Oakham. 

Samuel Fairfield, Worcester. 

Joseph Prescott, Paxton. 

Thomas Stevens, Holden. 

Ebenezer Prescott, Paxton. 

John Hatch, Spencer. 

Thomas Gill and Robert Hooper, 
Oakham, enlisted July 1. 

Zillai Stickney, Holden. 

Wright Woodward, Spencer. 

Isaac Livermore, Spencer. 

Elisha Livermore, Brookfiled. 

John Hagar, Weston. 

John Cleveland, Gloucester. 

Abijah Stowers, Leicester. 



Adam Gilmore, Leicester. 

David Newhall, 

Daniel Denny, 

Ebenezer Saunderson, 

Elijah Comins, 

Elias Green, 

Israel Saunderson, 

John Weaver, 

Isaac Livermore, jr., 

Jonathan Sargent, 

Job Stetson, 

James Greaton, 

Morris Huggins, 

Nathan Craige, 

James Richardson, 

William Brown and James Tucker, 

left the company June 14. 
Phinehas Green, 
Phinehas Green, jr., 
Perley Brown, 
Stephen Taylor, 
Samuel Sargent, 
Abner Livermore, 
Thomas Green, 
John Green, 

Daniel Sargent, left June 14, 
Jason Livermore, left June 14, 
Jonathan Jackson. 



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